Ruben Tejada

I must say, I’m not too excited about the waiver wire in either my NL-only or AL-only leagues this week. Not that I ever feel like there is a ton to choose from, but at least up until this point in the season I’ve felt like there are almost always one or two guys in each league that either got called up under the radar/got surprisingly shoved into a starting rotation/fell into a job due to injury/etc, that had at least a distant shot at mixed-league relevancy. This week, though, I’m not so sure.

On Saturday, our prayers were answered. No, not the prayer about winning Powerball. Or the prayer about sweatpants becoming the new formalwear. Or the prayer about muttonchops being some magical aphrodisiac. Or the prayer about your mom forgetting that time you accidentally sexted her. Or that prayer about being as successful in real life as you are in fantasy. No, not those. The prayer about Yu Darvish returning and looking as dominant as ever. On Saturday, he threw the fastest pitch of his major league career, throwing three pitches for more than 98 MPH. The line of 5 IP, 1 ER, 4 baserunners, 7 Ks was solid, but I imagine this will be the start of him reaffirming his place in the top 10 starter conversation. Kevin from ESPN’s “Get Him In Your Lineup” Department sang, “Yu, Yu got what I need…Yu say he just spends Yen…Yu say he just spends Yen…But baby Yuuuuuu,Yu got what I need!” Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:

Well, that sucked. It was extra sucky too because I had high hopes for Carlos Rodon‘s start vs. the lifeless Angels. Like eating Chinese food by yourself and accidentally getting two fortune cookies, then you open them and they both say the same thing, “The highlight of your night will be getting two fortune cookies with the same fortune.” Like going to the car wash and they give you a deal due to an impending rainstorm. Only it never rains, false alarm. But you did forget to put up your window. Like your parents reconcile their differences, just to yell at you. Rodon, it’s one thing to disappoint, but to raise expectations first? Oh man, you are one evil doode with a heart as cold as Clint Hurdle who has a serious attraction to Freese. Yesterday, Rodon went 1/3 IP, 5 ER with one strikeout. On the bright side, he upped his K-rate. “Don’t mock bright sides or I will burn you.” That’s the vengeful sun. Rodon had ten straight quality starts, and, unless he’s hurt, we should just treat this as an aberration. A sick, twisted aberration. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

It’s Opening Day, so what better time to start an “I Told You So.” Sure, any time is a good time for an “I Told You So,” and that doesn’t just hold true for So Taguchi. Though, that “I Told You So” rings true, as well. That’s if you did indeed tell So something, and he doesn’t heed your prescience. Oh, and don’t be scared, Carl Everett, prescience isn’t science from before science. So (Taguchi), A.J. Pollock has a fractured elbow. I told you not to draft him. Of course, I didn’t say he’d fracture his elbow; my Magic Eight Ball isn’t that precise, but I did say to avoid him in drafts. If you would’ve just followed that, we’d all be okay. You didn’t listen because you know better, and I’m not talking about that Armenian dishwasher you befriended at the bus stop, Better Vardanyian. You might know that Better, but you didn’t know better than to draft Pollock. For you drafters of Pollock, I’ll pour some of my “I Told You So” juice out that I’m marketing with So Taguchi. By the way, So Taguchi — retired for seven years, but a major part of the Opening Day roundup. Good for So Taguchi. And great for us, we got baseball! And not great for Pollock, he’ll be out for the better part of the year, if not the whole shebang, to quote Ricky Martin. I grabbed Socrates Brito in one league because he’ll be facing the majority of pitchers (righties). He was in my top 80 outfielders. I’m a big fan, though not as a houseguest. Wearing nothing but a toga on a couch is a little gross. He has solid speed and some power, think 10 HRs and 22 SBs. A poor man’s Pollock, I will call him Warsaw Ghetto. Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend for fantasy baseball:

Seems like Andre Ethier followed Natalie Portman’s advice in Garden State a little too closely when she told Braff that The Shins will change your life. Dodgers announced that Ethier would miss 10 to 14 weeks with a fractured tibia. What is that, two days after I drafted Ethier in Tout Wars? Two and a half? One and one three-quarters of a tibia later? All you can do is laugh. A high-pitched, crazed laugh like when you lose your job, then step in an empty elevator shaft. One of those real crazy laughs that you expect to hear from someone pushing a shopping cart filled with Ho-Ho boxes that have been removed of Ho-Hos and replaced with dog turds. One of those kind of laughs. Filling in for Ethier will be some combo of Scott Van Slyke, Carl Crawford, Kike Hernandez and Trayce Thompson, a group that could be summarized with: Bleh, Meh, Jewish, Girl. I removed Ethier from my top 100 outfielders and top 500. Anyway, here’s what else I saw in spring training for fantasy baseball:

Astros announced that Lance McCullers would start the year on the DL. Just like a Mick to skip out on work on St. Patty’s Day. Keeping an eye on you, Andrew McCutchen! At least we don’t have to start the year with tears for Fiers. Everybody wants to rule the Astros rotation! With it being announced that McCullers would start the year on the DL, I dropped him 15 spots in my starting pitcher ranks and lowered his projections. He’s now in the top 60 starters vs. the top 40 starters. He’s a young pitcher with a shoulder issue, so if you take my previous excitement and divide it by my current hesitation, you get the entire Angels team dancing on the head of a pin. Okay, my math might be off there, but I’m trying to weigh my current cautious optimism with my realistic pessimism. Anyway, here’s what else I saw in spring training for fantasy baseball:

Whatever happened to Flavor of Love? That show was my jizzoint! And Rock of Love, its companion piece, was the Better Call Saul to its Breaking Bad. You can’t tell me those two shows went off the air because Flavor or Brett found love. They were both likely married when the shows aired. It wasn’t about love, it was about meeting incredible people and finding out about other cultures..and watching girls fight! So, Matt Boyd rang ’em up and rang ’em down (Is that the saying? Let’s say it is!) with a line of 7 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 2 Ks. Boyd came over to the Tigers in the David Price trade, which is different than the Star of David trade, which sent a necklace to Bernie Hermowitz for a mah jong set. Sadly, Boyd is a streamer for most mixed leagues with his 91 MPH fastball and likely 6 to 7 K/9. In his next start, he gets the Royals again, and no matter what the Stream-o-Nator says, I wouldn’t touch him, not unless Mo’Nique’s taking him under her wing at Charm School (another great show!). Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

I remember back to the heydays of the public service announcement that would grace the network telecasts of things like baseball games. (Sidenote: Apparently I also remember back to the days when folks would use the word heydey….and folks.)

One such PSA was on peer pressure and it would feature a couple of kids: One doing something they shouldn’t be doing and the other hesitating on whether to do the same or stand strong. Inevitably, the ne’er do well of the duo would say something influential like “Come on, do it.” and “Go ahead, try it, everybody’s doing it.”

Some people in the DFS realm might tell you not to roster two starting pitchers together in the same game. The thinking is that you’ll limit yourself in the all-important win points from the SP if both pitchers are in the same game. After all, only one may win.

But in DraftKings, that win isn’t always the carrot you need to chase when it comes to starting pitchers. A nice cash game score in DK would be around 120-130. A win is four points, which isn’t insignificant, but it’s a mere pittance compared to the overall number. On another site, you might see a win being worth four points, too, but the point total to cash will be around 40. So while a win is worth almost 10 percent of the cash line for that site, a win is worth around .03% on DraftKings. This frees you up to take on more risks with pitchers that may not win, but are in good positions to score some value for you.

One such situation is occurring tonight in Pittsburgh, where the Cincinnati Reds and the hometown Pirates are sharing a Vegas line of 6.5, with Gerrit Cole established as a significant favorite (-190). In situations like this, on a weak SP slate as it is tonight, you may want to tackle both sides of the 6.5 line.

The Pirates are 22nd against RHP this season and 24th overall over the last 14 days, both with over a 20% K rate. Mike Leake isn’t awesome, but he’s solid, especially on this slate, rocking a 3.20 SIERA, 3.1 K/BB ratio and a 54% groundball rate over the last 30 days.

Sure, Cole looks great and is worth being rostered at home with his nine Ks/9 IP, great control, a high groundball rate of his own and a 3.03 SIERA over the last five starts. But why not roster both?

Sometimes you think you know what a player is. He’s a stud. He’s a stiff. He’s hot. He’s not. And so on. Players get labels pretty quick as they come into our consciousness and it’s awfully hard to shake that.

The same goes for teams throughout a season. Oh, they aren’t hitting well or that’s a hitter’s park. These types of unwitting biases can keep you from rostering the exact players you need to win so it’s important that you keep investigating the trends that are going on throughout the season.

Those that though, prior to the 2014 season, that Anthony Rizzo can’t hit lefties were right…..prior to that season. In 2015, Rizzo broke out and it was, in a significant part, due to a much improved approach against LHP. Those that didn’t just accept the current track record were rewarded when they rostered Rizzo against lefties when few other people did.

This season, maybe it’s a guy like Tampa’s Erasmo Ramirez, who looks to be turning the corner as a pitcher and has put up some solid numbers so far this season. You might write him off as stinky based on prior track record or by him burning you when you did roster him, but a look at the most recent 30 days show a different story.

It’s a good idea to look at a player’s metrics over the last 30 days or so to get an idea which way the player it trending or if he’s been able to continue a trend that he hasn’t exhibited before. You’re likely to find some player emerging and give you an edge over your competitors who are still reading last month’s news.

It’s the oldest trick in DFS. Blah blah blah Rockies blah blah blah Coors blah blah blah all the money. It’s true. If you are the type to play multiple lineups in a day (as I do in low dollar contests), it behooves you to follow the blah blah and build a Rockies stack, as well as their opponent. Right now, it’s the Los Angeles Dodgers, the same early season juggernaut that sees them second in road wOBA and tops overall against RHP.

Sometimes the Coors stack goes awry, but not in this series. It’s been some delicious soft serve home runs for many of the participants, largely due to the usual questionable Rockies pitching. Now Wednesday starter Chad Bettis has been better than most Rockies starters. After all, he does sport a spiffy 3.42 SIERA, which isolates the actual skills of the pitchers. He also has missed 10% of the bats he’s faced so far this season, a good measure of the man. Same for the other side, where Michael Bolsinger has surprised, sporting a shiny 3.14 SIERA of his own.

(Sidenote: For comparison sake, Corey Kluber has a 2.45 SIERA, Chris Sale a 3.08 and Mark Buehrle is saddled with a 4.64 number.)

So does that mean you shy away from the game? By no means! There are some excellent bats to target, provided they are playing. In the interest of staying away from this obvious stack below the weekly DraftKings contest invite, here are the names I am tracking for the game today, presented without comment:

Michael McKenry, C: $3,400

Ben Paulsen, 1B: $3,300

Alexander Guerrero, 3B/OF: $3,700

Andre Ethier, OF: $4,400

Joc Pederson, OF: $5,100

The other guys, like Troy Tulowitzki, Nolan Arenado and Adrian Gonzalez, I would love to roster and with some of the picks below, maybe you can fit them in without sacrificing starting pitching. Good luck!